Those words were uttered by a friend of mine as they looked over my shoulder at a Facebook post on my tablet.
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The sad thing is that the person who uttered those words is a gentle soul who advocates for the downtrodden and alienated. For some reason they felt that because the person put up a selfie on Facebook that they’d somehow made it okay to judge them and … and.
It frankly makes me a bit more than sad that this happened. I love both of these people, pray for both, and know that both have problems that would overwhelm 90% of the population in short order. But Facebook is a social media item – and it brings out a competition for popularity that baffles me.
I don’t think that I consider the total number of friends when I hit that button asking if someone would like to be my friend. I do consider whether or not they’ll send me into Santa Hell again, but beyond that it’s not an issue. (Santa Hell is where you go if over 1/2 of your friends are professional Santa types. All you ever see is a raft of friend requests from other portly white guys with beards. You never see any of your other friends. Facebook makes sure that nobody with a blue suit (versus red) ever shows up in your potential friends queue.)
I do monitor my friend count on the author page. It’s pathetic at the moment. So head over to your right and click on the Facebook logo (or this link) and like that page. It helps me with publishers. But friends? I have a lot. I don’t honestly know the number. Nor do I care.
Back to the issue of this post. For some reason otherwise normally kind and generous people go nuts on Facebook and dismiss others with contempt based on looks. They simply don’t realize that this is the only outlet that some folks have for their social life. That may be due to a brutal work/school/family schedule that allows no other activity. It may be because they are victims of agoraphobia. It may be because they are so depressed and lonely that they cling only to the folks who have already acknowledge them on Facebook. It may be – fill in the blank, it’s probably a real reason.
The next time you laugh or grimace at a photo on Facebook, take a moment to pray for that person. You might still laugh or grimace, but you’ll be working toward the right end if you take time to lift them up to God and ask for favor for them. We all need it. We all have stories that matter. We all need prayer and love from the people we meet in real life and in cyberspace.
She may look creepy, but she’s my friend and deserves better than that. I’m no peach myself.
